According to Won Chul Kim, vice president, LGIC, the company's proposed $50 million investment plans in India would be jeopardised if the Government scraps its CDMA-based rural telephony plans. If DoT scraps the 6 lakh rural lines WLL project, and goes for retendering, this will also unnecessarily delay the process of providing rural telephony, he added.

The Korean company, which had recently taken over Escorts Communications Limited, had been investing heavily in manufacturing CDMA-WLL based equipment in the last two years. "We have invested $5 million in field trails alone," explains Mr Kim.

Last year, LGIC had bagged the entire 56,000 line urban telephony tender of DoT. Last month, it had emerged as the L1 in the 20,000 line pilot project for rural telephony. It has also submitted its bid in the six lakh line rural tender.

"WLL is not a technology by itself, but an application, which was can be based on any of the technologies like CDMA, TDMA, DECT, and GSM, and which does away with the need to spend valuable time and money in laying cables," says Lalit Verma, senior general manager, technology and customer support, Escorts Communications Limited.

WLL makes it possible to provide phones in a designated geographical area without laying cables, he added. In rural areas, WLL is the most practical option to provide telephones as it entails fast installation and reduced maintenance, a much lesser cost, said Mr Verma.

There is no debate questioning the benefits of WLL architecture, everybody is clear that it is the best option for fast installation and reaching the stage of phone on demand, particularly in the rural areas, he added.

The key areas where CDMA scores over other technologies are, its capacity, which is nearly four times that of GSM and TDMA. It more efficient as far as use of spectrum is concerned.

According to him, other benefits of using CDMA technology over GSM are that each BTS can cover up to a radial 2,000 square km area and has the capacity to offer communication up to 2,000 rural subscribers from single base station, besides the ability to support fixed telephone operating on solar power and providing fax, PCO and Internet services.

Alleging that the policy is favouring GSM, LG officials pointed out that tenders for GSM are being placed without even TEC approvals. "After extensive trial, held over a period of two years, DTS gave its approval to CDMA IS 95 and TDMA IS 54 technologies. GSM did not seek the approvals."

He also pointed out that while customs duty for GSM handsets was 5 per cent, it was 25 per cent of CDMA handsets, hence making it more expensive. Kim also said that CDMA is superior to GSM because it is can migrate to 3G, unlike GSM. "In GSM, the handsets are not compatible to advancements of packet data network, like GPRS and EDGE," added Verma.

However, according to industry experts, as far as migration to 3G is concerned, GSM is in much more advanced stage than CDMA. Number of trials done on GSM far exceed the number of CDMA trials. In fact, the trials on CDMA have not even started as yet, he added.

According to a Delhi-based industry expert, it is a farce that when you migrate from GSM to 3G, the whole system will have to be taken apart. Mr Kim also argued that GSM does not have data packet transmission capacity currently. However, according to another section in the industry, CDMA 1X, which will be available in 2002, will take up data transmission rates to up to 170 kbps, while GPRS, which overlays on GSM, is supporting 64 kbps today and will take you up to 115 kbps in 2001, on the same platform.

On the other hand CDMA IS 95B, the technology available today can manage a maximum of 64 kbps. Path beyond 1X is not even defined as yet, he added.

Industry experts also argue that GPRS handset will also be compatible, because GPRS also works on the same frequency as GSM. In fact, according to him, 3G path in GSM is much more defined.

LGIC lobbies for CDMA-based WLL tech for DTO's village telephony project